What it takes to resolve our own trauma so that we can then be better at creating psychological safety for others

A belated Happy New Year to you world. It's been a summer of letting go and realigning, book writing, retail, the beach and having an absolute ball being back amongst more performing artsy things. But it's been awhile, so thought it was time to write a blog and here it is and here we go, "going there" again.....xx

If we want to be able to most effectively be present with and create psychological safety for others, we first need to be able to be present with and manage the discomfort and trauma within ourselves. But what does it take to most effectively do that?


But more than that, why do we also need to? First, Trauma and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) are apparently  more common than we might think. Depending on who is doing the study, where and with whom, there can be quite some variation in estimates of the prevalence of anxiety, stress, trauma and PTSD.  But that being said, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, it is estimated that 75% of Australian adults have experienced a traumatic event at some point in their life. I reckon we could pretty much upgrade that to 100% given the last few years of global pandemic shenanigans, climate emergency...and unless any of you have mastered immortality ahead of me, at some point that will definitely upgrade to 100%. But in all seriousness, it is also estimated that 5-10-% will, unfortunately, develop post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from their experience. The estimate of those experiencing PTSD is also thought to be an underestimate, But the point is, that is A LOT of people who, at some point in time, experience their sense of physical and or psychological safety being compromised by anxious thoughts, intrusive, painful memories, or physical symptoms of hyper-arousal. Particularly prior to any one of those individuals being in social situations, having challenging personal conversations requiring them to speak up about what they want or to assert themselves; the kind that can set off any number of our triggers, when we have unresolved trauma. Let alone in association with professional activities that involve getting in front of groups and can trigger such things.




Prince Harry’s recent autobiography (which I was super curious to listen to, Harry and William, and myself, all sharing the unfortunate plight of having grown up mostly without Mum’s from a young age) among many other important things, openly discusses his personal experience of both childhood trauma and PTSD, how they came to impact his professional engagements at times and what support he sort out for this. Classes (and a whole lot of “Papp” stalkers) apart, many of his and my experiences of how they can impact us, are strikingly similar, as well as individually nuanced. But what I hope this adequately demonstrates is that anxiety and PTSD don’t discriminate based on class, or social status and they’re not just a problem for people returning from war. If each person’s experience of anxiety and trauma is unique and requires a customised approach to address it, they’re also a universal human problem. And Harry and Megan's recent joint disclosures of their respective experiences of trauma just kindly opened up another very public window of opportunity for discussion of such things for a huge percentage of the media and technologically connected human population.




Yet how many of us could say with certainty that we know how to reestablish our own inner perception of psychological safety, following stressful times, let alone following traumatic events? Plus how to re-regulate our nervous systems, heal trauma and get our lives back after such times? As well as how to re-regulate our nervous systems prior to engaging in stress-inducing personal, social and professional communication activities? Before we’re now being asked, in professional or relational contexts, to show up and provide psychological safety (eg hold space) for others?




First I think we actually need to better understand what psychological safety actually is. Unlike what you might also be seeing on the front page of Google, psychological safety isn’t and never really was ONLY about making it comfortable for others to engage and contribute in team organisational settings. What Google calls psychological safety, are actually the benefits of what team psychological safety DOES when applied in group settings.



How I've defined it in my book on the subject:



Psychological safety, at the most basic individual level, is the combination of the physical state of feeling safe and physically at ease within oneself, combined with the perception by any given individual that they are safe in their surrounds and safe in the presence of others that they’re surrounded with to be them, warts and all, and grow into their highest potential. It then entails a level of trust that they are then safe to engage in tasks of daily life, as well as to engage optimally with others, as they may be a part of that daily activity, personal or professional.  Psychological safety, therefore, is not just an experience that we create for others, in a personal or professional setting. It begins with the state we are creating and embodying within ourselves.



A definite component thus in the building of our own sense of psychology safety, needs to be accounting for and addressing all the little and unresolved anxieties and traumas that are compromising this. For some people, at times, this will also involve a level of managing to resolution, any mild to severe trauma and PTSD, or CPTSD too. While creating psychological safety for others is in part, at times, about being able to stay curious about, trying to understand and have compassion for things that we may not have ourselves experienced, when it comes to the kinds of trauma we've experienced for ourselves, if we are to be able to succeed in most effectively being present with something similar in others, we first need to be able to be able to be present with it and manage the reactions to it within ourselves. 



When it comes to getting support for trauma or PTSD and it's various social and performance related expressions, there is some great support out there. Thankfully, we also collectively know far more now than we did 3 decades ago about what trauma and PTSD or CPTSD is and how to treat, plus actually recover from, not just manage symptoms of trauma as though we a condemned to a life sentence of suffering due to it. (As someone who’s recovered from or had to manage ongoing ‘symptoms’ and ‘triggers’ of multiple traumatic events in early to adult life well known to be contributing factors to both PTSD and CPTSD, and talked to or worked with thousands of people recovering from various types of trauma over the years, from my understanding of the issue, I’d say it doesn’t have to be.



A much wider range of professions and specialists, for example; Teachers, Social Workers, Emergency Department and Emergency Services Personnel, Rehabilitative Medicine Specialists, Ear Nose and Throat Surgeons, Speech Pathologists, Gynaecologists and Reproductive and Sexual Health Specialists, Complimentary Medicine Practitioners and many Coaches, Counsellors, Trainers, religious or spiritual Counsellors, Ministers or Advisors and the majority of my past Drama Teachers and Performing Arts Lecturers and Training Colleagues, are often seeing people and having to manage people with signs of trauma, and are often far more knowledgeable than anyone once was about what trauma looks like and how to address it. As just a few examples of a potential many. So it’s easier for people today to find support. But it can still be difficult at times both to know what to ask for when you’re seeking out support and to access a full holistic package of support that will actually get you somewhere substantial when it comes to healing and getting back to living our highest potential in life.  In a world where so many people can be biased in trying to sell their wares as “THE way.”



While Western medicine often concerns itself with trying to find a research based consistent “one size fits all” solution, that works consistently for everyone, for a specific illness or condition, the reality is that, while some approaches work better than others, and while there are techniques that consistently result in improvement, there is NO one size fits all for trauma, because each person’s experience, and mental architecture of the meaning they've attached to their stories and triggers is often so unique. So, if you want to actually move any given person in the direction of permanent resolution, over pathologizing and sentencing them to applying a bandaid per accident, symptomatic management for life,  each treatment program needs to be adapted for the nuance of each individual and will look slightly different. Complex childhood trauma and adult trauma associated with a car accident for one example, will both require different levels of support from the list of interventions that can be utilised below.



We also often need to go wider than the scope of Western Mental Health alone. And understand who can help and with what too.



A GP will likely prescribe anti anxiety/anti depressant medication, as a means of helping re-regulate the neurochemistry that can often be out of whack in people experiencing anxiety and trauma. A psychologist will often then back it up by teaching you Cognitive Behavioural Therapy to manage your anxious thoughts and the subsequent following emotional reactivity, replacing them with positive affirmations. Plus teach you breathing techniques or other state regulatory techniques and how to monitor your biofeedback to be able to more consciously re-regulate your nervous system when panic or trigger sets in. These are important steps. But it’s still short term symptom management. Why?



Having taken Effexor for a year and half in my early 20’s, at which time I was first diagnosed with “Generalised Anxiety Disorder” (once a convenient catch-all label a few decades back, when many a white privileged Western Psychologist was still comparatively clueless about looking for PTSD and trauma in anyone other then Veterans, and, to be fair, I was equally still in a state of denial and ignorance about the severity of some of the things I’d experienced) there was short term benefit in the reprieve of the feeling of calm and the shaving off of the biochemical highs and lows of reactivity I experienced within the first couple of days, that tipped me off to the fact that I had actually been stuck in a state of nervous hyper-arousal for decades by the age of 23, after traumatic event on top of traumatic event.  Enough so that I managed to justify the initial sleep disturbances, altered muscle and sexual function and inability to drive or stay out after a certain hour at night, at which point, whether I liked it or not, I would basically go down like a Sundowner. (You don't always read as much about those on the pill-on-tongue Linkedin posts.) Personally, I also eventually stopped taking them because I noticed also, my constant lack of reactivity to human conditions that once upon a time, I intellectually realised I would have had highly empathic, compassionate responses to, and the loss of that empathy felt like too much of a sacrifice on part of the core of who I was.



At the same time Counselling Psychologists were also certainly VERY helpful when i needed someone to just talk to and soundboard with. They were also very handy with helping me navigate my own way through relational and family relational challenges, in listening and holding space while I talked about some things I couldn’t talk to others about. And later, I found some great support from them when the past (in the form of people re-entering my present, who I’d co-experienced abuse and trauma with) re-entered my present and I needed to say and do something about it,) they were a needed part of me finding my empowered way to navigate through such early times. But as I stopped taking the anti-depressants, despite the dedicated practice of CBT, the extremes of my reactions to triggers and neural programs for trauma responses came straight back online in certain situations, with the same intensity and I realised just how much they hadn’t done a thing for resolving the actual trauma. The fact that i'm not alone in having observed this is why I regard them as a temporary, bandaid solution at best, while you do the rest of the work required and only a partial source of resolution. And one with sometimes extreme side effects at that.



For me personally, it wasn’t until I had myself studied Counselling, including Abuse and Trauma and Grief and Loss Counselling and Child Development & Effective Parenting in my mid to late 20’s and initially started working as a Case Support worker and Case Manager in Community Services, with people with moderate to severe protective concerns, mental health, recovering from addiction, or dealing with "moderate to severe autism spectrum disorders" before I started self identifying things I had a whole lot in common with some of my clients, and realised I had been long been suppressing some pretty significant things. It was when I then started seeing trauma informed Counsellors as my Counselling Supervisors, who were also Bodyworkers trained in Psychosomatic body work, with Teaching and Social Work backgrounds, as well as working with Trauma informed Relationship Coaches, Sexual Educators, Tantra Teachers in particular (also Osteopaths, RMT's, Homeopaths, Naturopaths and TCM Practitioners and Intuitive/Spiritual Healers and Counsellors) that anyone started going there in bringing up the signs of trauma and PTSD that they were seeing IN me. It was many of my Mentors who were among the first I experienced who had any lasting tools and solutions for healing the childhood trauma AND had the internal capacity to stay present with the discomfort of it all, without running or referring out, while I worked on developing the ability to heal, bring myself back online, regulate my nervous system when it got triggered, and reprogram old patterns/neural pathways, into new, more productive habits and responses, in line with my then future goals and personal and professional visions.



I also have past Mentors, colleagues and friends who were also plant medicine practitioners and well versed in the new buzz interest of psychedelic assisted therapy for PTSD, who swear by it as a means of assistance. I personally feel because a core part of healing from PTSD and not falling into the hole of this horrible thing that happened to us having no meaning, rhyme or reason, can be reconnecting with faith, spirituality and a sense of purpose and the altered states of consciousness that can be reached assisted by plant medicines can potentially be another tool to aid with this. But I think it’s important to recognise also that, plant medicines are not the ONLY way to reach those states.  I’ve had plenty a spiritual breakthrough moment in my journey in which I more spontaneously was reconnected with this part of myself through meditation, mindfulness, Ecstatic Dance, Tantra, Neo Shamanic, Transpersonal or Spiritual healing or Counselling session, or through crisis itself, minus getting served the cup of DMTea (get it?)



When it comes to Trauma and reprogramming the neural pathways that have been laid down in the brain, body and nervous system, in response to past traumatic experiences, I’d disagree with the Business Coaches and Success experts of the world who tell you “life and business success is 90% mindset management.” For anyone who’s experienced a trauma flashback or nearly passed out in the middle of a trigger setting off your nervous system, I’d say it’s actually feels like about 80% re-learning Neuro-regulation and reprogramming your responses to triggers when you’re in the depths of reactivity and a panic attack. When you are in a panic or the lower states of the fight flight state, like freeze or dissociation, or you’re hyperventilating, it becomes difficult until after you’ve had time to re-regulate and recover to access higher mental brain functions in those moments. So in those moments, CBT and higher level logic can feel about as useful to us as a screen door in a submarine, compared to a handful of simple, instant things you can do to shift your focus back off of your deteriorating state and out of the past program/loop that was just running on your insides. Which is why I say it feels like 80% learning techniques of Neuro-regulation and practicing implementing your trigger protocols, are far more important in those moments than thinking “positive vibes only” and practicing CBT or NLP positive affirmations. The other “20%” is the work you do outside of triggered moments also on any number of these that may be relevant to the particular kind of trauma in question:

• Having someone to talk to for emotional support and sound-boarding where needed or wanted, accompanied by
• Re-writing the stories and beliefs we developed as as result of past traumatic incidents, into versions that acknowledge our awareness today and highlight our strengths, growth and future purpose
• Re-aligning (mind, body, spiritually, energetically) to visions for the future and our life purpose
• Creating protocols to be implemented, unique to our specific triggers, for later use in regulating our state in future triggering circumstances
• Practicing mindfulness and reconnecting (or rather staying connected with the body), in both waking and triggered states
• Metabolising the stuck energy within us of past trauma AND
• Bringing back online the parts of us (mentally, physically, spiritually, energetically) that were lost/fractured/disconnected during traumatic events
• Providing the past traumatised versions of us (childhood or later) with whatever support they needed that was unavailable to them at the time, to help bring those parts of us healing and closure
• Improving our wellness (especially):

           -diet
           -detox
           -building up and integrating the support of the microbiome
           -learning and doing the right kinds of exercise, given the state of one’s nervous system and neurochemistry, and

• Holistically rebuilding our sense of confidence and resilience, through exercise and possibly self defence/martial arts training and also through
• Upskilling in communication or leadership skills, assertiveness or relational skills that will help us create better outcomes with people in future
• Reducing unnecessary sources of external or cumulative ‘background’ stress (that pile on and compound the problem)
• Integrating spirituality and or a sense of (higher) purpose
• Building up our support network (personal and professional) of people who can support us during our healing and growth AND our network of people in professional contexts who are capable of, resourced and willing toto accommodate the support needs of people recovering from anxiety or trauma into their professional development plans.

That’s where we come full circle, back around to the need to provide Psychological Safety for others in the workplace.



After over 3 decades of living, researching and working with clients who, underneath all other surface concerns they mentioned, have more often than not been working through some form of trauma, I’ve come to regard ALL of these as just as necessary for making some serious headway on getting back to life as a new, wiser ‘normal’ post trauma, in complement to any number of Western Medicine physical or psychological interventions that may be required over time. This list is of what needs to happen is by no means exhaustive; many Trauma Recoverees, as well as Modality Practitioners will have their extra perspectives to add on "the how" of what modalities or techniques they see as beneficial.



To recap, they may or may not also be needed, to lesser degrees, for those who want to be able to better support others in leadership and professional contexts, as well as personal relational contexts. If we want to be able to better do this, at times, we will need to work on ourselves, our own sense of psychological safety and ability to support ourselves. As well as also upskilling in things like Mental Health First Aid, or Psychological Safety training, to be able to better be present with and support others through their trauma related moments of need.



You don’t actually need to go spend another 6-8 years at Uni to become a Psychologist or Psychiatrist to be able to better do it and do it well. I’m not one, but over the years, I’ve often worked collaboratively with others to help people make massive qualitative and quantifiable gains of breaking through and getting on with living a new, wiser form of normal and thriving in business, career and creating new, healthier, more fulfilling relationships that have stood the test of time. 



In addition to being someone who has successfully managed to find a way to get on with life and get back to doing what I love, beyond a whole lot more traumatic stuff than just losing MY Mum, I’m someone who’s studied and or qualified, trauma informed Counselling approaches (including grief and loss and abuse counselling, as well as child development), Performing Arts, Gestalt and Transpersonal Art Therapy, Leadership Coaching and Mentoring, i hold a Science degree that was about 50% Human Biological Science, have studied and been mentored by Mentors qualified in Psychosomatics and Bodywork, as well as Private Practice & Business Development, Branding, Communication, Leadership and Public Speaking. While I was born Christian, I’ve also studied countless different religious and spiritual approaches that are relevant to the spiritual side of recovering from trauma, plus Transpersonal Psychology and Neo-Shamanism. I’ve also been trained in various modalities of Energetic Health, worked as a Reiki Practitioner and spent much time working on my skills as a Spiritual Counsellor and Intuitive Healer, in the process of looking for both my own answers and ones that worked best or most consistently in providing qualitative or quantifiable improvements for clients. And also had the additional benefit of a couple of decades of working in Western Health, Mental Health and Community Services, as well as having benefitted from the exposure to the knowledge of International network of over 20 000 Complimentary Medicine Practitioners I also once helped co-create. On top of a Science degree, i like to think my approach is pretty inclusive of a wide range of different perspectives, critically assessed, well researched and qualitatively as well as quantifiably evidence based.  As well as collaborative in working with a network of others to help people create a holistic support system that is right for them personally.



I share this because, for as long as I’ve been in my private practice work, given that it took me and many others in the millennial to middle aged bracket, decades later before I or they connected with some of the right support that really made the difference, one of the things I have often long wanted to do, is to help other people who are wanting to step up and thrive in their professional purpose, communication, leadership and relationships of numerous kinds, but are struggling with social or performance anxiety, fear of speaking and speaking up and other vocal or communication issues, and likely a host of health, family, romantic or professional relationship challenges that can unfortunately accompany unresolved trauma, PTSD or CPTSD, get the support they need to shave decades off their own healing experience, more successfully navigate the challenges that come with the territory of admitting to people in one’s personal or professional world that one is experiencing social or performance anxiety, or the negative impact of trauma or some form of PTSD.  And most importantly, get on with the important business of thriving in creating a meaningful, purposeful personal and professional life they truly love. Which this year, I’ll be continuing doing a little more of in private practice again, as well as where I can, supporting people to become more knowledgeable and practiced in how to create greater psychological safety for others in personal and professional settings.


if you're still with me after all of that and there's any questions that you have or anything that i can do to support you, please don't hesitate to connect with me below.  Thanks for reading. Until next time, have fun, take care, may you and life be equally awesome.

Nat
xxoo

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